“All groups will prepare the case and I’ll pick any one to give the presentation”, said our prof. I thought this is what B-School life is all about: even if you are not presenting, you have to prepare the case. Who knows who gets picked up! But hang on! Where is my group? Then I went to Punnu (our CR) and asked him to put me in a group. He asked me “Any preference?” I said “Yaar, kal hi toh aaya hoo. Don’t know anyone. Whichever group is one short, I’ll go to that group”. Every group was of 6 people, so I automatically went to the one having only 5 members.
Infy’s refusal to relieve me on time meant that I joined IMT two weeks late, exhausting the quota of misses allowed in all the subject of my first term and by that time, all the group formations were already done. It was not the first time that I was in a new place, meeting new people. So I consoled myself that if the group is not good, I’ll change it in the next trimester. What I didn’t know was that not only we all 6 will stick together till the last subject of the last term, but also will become the closest friends!
My Group. Our first meeting actually gave a teaser of what’s there in store. We met at Pandeyji’s room (can’t forget that J-Lobby, 4th floor!!) to discuss a forthcoming presentation. Though it’s a different thing that we hardly discussed that presentation but that meeting gave me the assurance that it’s not as bad as I was thinking. From usual “What’s your story”, we quickly came to the point-Bakar. And I took that opportunity to crack all those non-veg jokes which are my way of telling people (with whom I’m supposed to spend some time together) the way they are going to see me for our time together. And guess what? All of us belonged to the same breed, though the degree differed but more or less, we were the birds of same feather☺
Then for the next 21 months, my group gave me the assurance of belongingness. Best example of that belongingness came from the fact that we always looked for the left-back corner of the classroom for an empty seat-so that we can sit together. The fact that our hands will quickly dial those 5 numbers if any important information was intercepted by anyone from our group-so that none of us is unaware of anything worth knowing. The fact that we’ll arrange amongst ourselves who’s going to attend which class –so that “proxies’ can be distributed judiciously. The fact that we’d always have our dinner together-so that we can forget the quality of food in our mess. The fact that, no matter if it’s rain or fog, there would be a coffee round in the late night-so that we can cry laughing out. The fact that we’ll not allow any prof to break our group-so that none of us goes anywhere else. The fact that we always made our trips together-so that we can click the pictures and someday, each one us can tell his kids that this was my family at IMT.
I have always believed that whatever experience you carry from any city is because of the kind of people you meet there. So whether it was Indore, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore or Ghaziabad, I have those lovely memories because of the people I met there who made all the difference. And to be honest, in every city I believed that this is it-I wont meet people like these anymore. But I have been consistently proven wrong.
I was lucky enough that I got a second chance to relive my college life and do all those things which I might have missed earlier. So it was because of my group that IMT became “The IMT” for me. It was a dream that I lived and I never wanted to wake up. And my post will be incomplete if I don’t mention about those two lateral entries in our group who came a little late but then became an integral part of our group and if I must say, they became integral part of each other’s life (in IMT only?) as well;) Please don’t kill me for this!
This March is making me more senti as its going to be exactly one year since we left each other. Many things have changed since then. Many of us changed our jobs. Two got married. We have started thinking of investments, savings, career growth and all those “necessary” things. There are now so many things to worry about in our life which consume our whole day. Aamir’s dialogue from RDB, written by an IMTian, suits the bill here: “Ik din ye sab kuchh nahi rehna. Sab apne-apne raste nikal jayenge. Wohi duniya de jhamele. Naukri dhoondho, paise kamao, ghar basao, tey life de isharo pe nachte jaao. College de gate ke iss taraf hum life ko nachate hai, tey dooji taraf life humko nachati hai”. Couldn’t agree more. Yeah, we have to move on. But out of nowhere, sometimes I feel a pinch when my boss tells me “Chal Sharma, coffee peeke aate hai”.
P.S.- Dedicated to my whole group and in specific to Raabutt, who got married 3 days back:)
